


structural planning

by lokh



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1930470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokh/pseuds/lokh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now you’re not sure whether it was a good idea to leave the house or not. This adventure has provided you with the opportunity to watch two men well into their adulthood building a town out of cans on the floor of a supermarket.</p>
<p>(or, in which im not actually sure how civil unions are established and frustratingly use civil union and marriage interchangeably)</p>
            </blockquote>





	structural planning

**Author's Note:**

> whatthefawxblogs said: Your OTP stuck in line at the grocery store. The power has just gone out, sealing the store’s automatic doors shut and the hungry shoppers inside.
> 
> this is it

You really wish you’d stayed home today.

Having not left the apartment in nearly a week (and running out of food as a result of it), you thought to yourself early this morning that it’d be a good idea to go shopping. The weather was right for it; sunlight warm against the pavement and saturating the atmosphere with bright and vibrant hues.

Well, it’s still sunny now, but you wouldn’t be able to tell, not in this grocery store. Like all the other shoppers (should’ve been, at least), you were minding your own business, wondering whether maybe eggs aren’t a good idea to have for dinner, it tends to make you sick and anyway isn’t it more of a breakfast food when with little warning the lights and power went off.

Aside from the initial anguished groans (a chorus that you partook in), the shoppers have mostly settled down, most on their phones distracted and drat, you really wish you hadn’t forgotten your phone. A few have resignedly sat on the floor (you can’t blame them; it’s been nearly half an hour since the power’s gone out), and as you make your way to the line (because if you’re going to be stuck here for god knows how long, you might as well finish your shopping) you find that they’ve given up and sat on the floor too. Might as well join them.

Even with the power off, the line is still huge, and others seem to have caught on and are making it even longer. The cashier hasn’t moved – he keeps checking his watch and glancing back at the line with something akin to terror. Maybe he’s hoping his shift will end before the power comes back on? God, if you’re wondering about the working schedules of complete strangers, you must really be getting bored. Your phone is the most blessed and most wretched object that you currently don’t have on your person.

A few meters up the line, two people have begun talking. It’s sort of quiet, but against the almost eerie silence it’s like a siren (to you, at least). One of the men (is that the Mayor? No, it can’t be. Must be someone else. Even if it is, it’s not like you’re about to go up and talk to him) shakes something in his basket almost fretfully and the man sitting next to him mumbles back, almost too low and too slurred for you to hear, “no, dude, even if we put it back, it’s still gonna defrost. The power ain’t workin’ in the fridges too, y’know?”

Well. It’d be rude to scoot closer to eavesdrop on this conversation (plus, you’d lose your place in line), so you crane your neck over the head of the bright-haired person in front of you to see them properly (which is probably just as rude but hey, you’ve sunk down to the level where you listen in on conversations out of boredom so it can’t get much worse).

The guy who was shaking the basket has stopped and he’s moving his hands and shoot, that is the Mayor! Maybe the people trying to shove food into their clothing should be a bit more careful about their audience. (Though admittedly it’s a good idea. Are the cameras off as well?) Luckily for them (and for you), the Mayor’s attention seems to be entirely fixated on the man sitting next to him.

Said man has dark skin and what has to be bleached nearly-white hair, and despite it being very hard to see inside he is wearing sunglasses (which make you all the more paranoid that they can, in fact, see you). He purses his lips, taps his foot against the linoleum once, twice, then he says, “no, Mr Mayor, but as rad as that sounds, we cannot have a bunch of buff guys break down the doors and haul us out via helicopter. Like I said, totally cool, but also I don’t make the rules.”

You highly doubt that the Mayor said that. Or, well, communicated that. In any case, you see the figure of the Mayor slump slightly, and his friend (?) rushes to pat him on the shoulder, quickly murmuring, “dude, it’s okay, like. It hasn’t even been half an hour yet. There’s no way we’re gonna be late. There’s nothing we can do about it. Anyway, you need a break, doin’ nothin’ but runnin’ your town, lovin’ the people but wearin’ a frown, better take a break before you go losin’ face and” here, you tune out, because you never thought you’d ever be witness to this but the man is actually rapping mid-conversation and you don’t know whether to laugh or be humiliated on his and the Mayor’s behalf.

By the time you stop hearing the rhythm of his rapping, the Mayor is pulling cans out of the basket and… stacking them on top of each other?

“What- dude. Come on. You can’t run your real town so you’re gonna- no, you’re right. This town is just as real as any other and its denizens deserve to be cared for. I now christen it: Can Town. Let me get in on this structural planning action.”

Now you’re not sure whether it was a good idea to leave the house or not. This adventure has provided you with the opportunity to watch two men well into their adulthood building a town out of cans on the floor of a supermarket. It’s been nearly an hour now, though, and now that you think about it, you’re missing some thread for the project you’re working on. If the power doesn’t come back on in the next half hour, there’s no way you’ll get to the store on time and won’t that just be great? Plus, if it doesn’t come back in that time, it’s very possible that the little Can Town that those two are building may escalate into a little can country instead. The Mayor is moving on to bigger and better things.

Though, looking over, it looks like they’ve actually inducted some people into denizenship. The little town has sprawled all the way over to the next cashier (who looks on with thinly veiled amusement and frustration) and next to what you assume to be a courthouse made of stacked boxes is a girl who you recall to have been sitting two lines over. Her cackle startles you and, with a swing of her cane and a shout of ‘justice!’ she accidentally collapses the courthouse. You hear an ‘oh my gooooooood’ from the long-haired girl next to her (though it sounds more gleeful than anything else) and the Mayor rushes to pile the boxes back on top of each other. The man with the mayor mutters something, too low for you to hear and then suddenly he’s craning his head up to look straight at you and _oh shit_.

“Hey, you,” he calls out, and you wonder if you could sink through the floor to avoid the embarrassment of having been caught, “come over here! We need someone to oversee this holy matrimony.”

God. Maybe if you ran he wouldn’t recognise you. You look down at your own basket and he calls out again, “c’mon, we’ll let you cut in line!”

Well. That’s a plus. Reluctantly, you stand, taking your basket with you and slowly, slowly make your way over. You hope he’s not calling you over to get a better look at your face to find later. Despite this, you have to stop yourself from checking your reflection in your pocket mirror – you were kind of in a hurry leaving the house.

Before you can even so much as attempt to sit down, the man is pulling you down by the wrist to sit next to him (and boy, would your sister have some things to say about the manhandling, you’re half ready to slap him yourself) when he continues, addressing the denizens (?) of Can Town, “okay, now we’ve got a witness and there’s nothing standing between me and the Mayor and the eternal mutual prisoner situation that is civil union. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything, uh…”

“Kanaya,” you supply, and drat, you should’ve kept your mouth shut! You just made it that much easier for him to track you down. The long-haired girl glances up and winks at you and god, what have you gotten yourself into?

“Right,” he says. “Alright, Judge Terezi, will you do the honours?”

The red-haired cackling girl – Terezi – grins and announces with a flourish and a dramatic wave of her hand (luckily not holding the cane), “alright! So I, Your Honour Terezi, ask whether you, Dave, will take-”

“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it!”

“-oh my god, shut up, Vriska! Don’t you want them to get married? Anyway, do you, Dave, take Mr Mayor to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Dave nods solemnly, and somehow in that moment you can’t find it within yourself to bring up the fact that they are getting ‘married’ in a courthouse made of boxes in a town made of cans, “hell yes I do. We will rule this town with a fair hand and expand until we eventually become the benevolent but totally wicked rulers of the entire world.”

The Mayor nudges Dave in the arm.

“The Mayor says ‘I do’ too. God fucking bless, otherwise that would’ve been a hell of a lot more awkward.”

“Any objections will be met with the swift hand of justice! You may kiss the guy!”

Just before you become privy to a completely forbidden relationship making itself flesh (they were really about to go at it, wasn’t the Mayor married, even if he wasn’t and now that you think about it you don’t think he is, what would other people think, were other people watching, who was Dave anyway, his secretary, he couldn’t be less than 20 years young than the Mayor, what if this makes its way to the papers-) the lights come back on and the syncopated celebratory whoops from around the store startles you all out of the moment. As the other shoppers in the line begin to stand up, you quickly help Dave and the Mayor (who insist that you, Terezi and Vriska stand in front in the line) pick up the various cans and boxes and return them to their respective baskets.

You’re still kind of out of it after you’ve picked up your plastic bags from the counter, and this was definitely the last thing you expected when you left your apartment this morning. At least there’s still time to buy sewing supplies – you’d only been stuck in the grocery store for about an hour and fifteen minutes. As you leave the store, however, you hear Dave shout behind you, “what do you mean there was an emergency exit?!”


End file.
